netflix going to Blue-ray only :(:(

mindseye

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Because the consumer electronics industry exists to make a profit, they'll introduce marginal improvements in products and push them before the technology is truly mature.

As a result, we have a lot of consumer products that last only a short time in the marketplace. (Remember the MiniDisc? Zip drives? CueCat? The Sega Nomad?)

In general, my gut tells me to wait on new technology for a couple of years to see how it evolves.
 

simcha

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Are you kidding? This is a great way for the electronics industries to keep stimulating the economy. If you change formats on the consumer every five years or so then the consumer has to keep up with buying new hardware and all the movies they had in the old formats all over again.

It's the best scam we have going in this century.
 
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deleted15807

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Sony has been a two time loser (Betamax and the current DVD standard). Sony for the first time won and it was not an easy win by far.
 

Meniscus

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Are you kidding? This is a great way for the electronics industries to keep stimulating the economy. If you change formats on the consumer every five years or so then the consumer has to keep up with buying new hardware and all the movies they had in the old formats all over again.

It's the best scam we have going in this century.

Actually, I think the best scam is all the new "technology" in razor blades. Remember when I pack of replacement twin blades cost $5 or $6? Now you easily pay $15-$20 (or more) for triple, quadruple, or even quintuple blade razors...and now they even vibrate (which means you have to pay money for the battery).

Of course if you were perfectly happy with an ordinary twin blade razor and don't want to pay more for the gimmick, you're out of luck.
 

transformer_99

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This should've happened from the start, select the better of the two formats and go with it across the board. Since blue ray wins, I expect them to be $ 39.99, just like the old cdrw's are. It's not like they haven't had the opportunity to make them cheap in China. If they are already exploiting labor for cheap product, I refuse to pay any more than $ 39.99 for it and to be honest that's way too much.

If they don't lower the price, guess what, we don't rent their movies. That's where the money is for Netflix.

Another way they're going to get into our wallets, the end of analog broadcasting. They can keep that too for the price of hardware and subscriptions. I have no time to make these people fabulously wealthy for the product we've been getting. I have enough to keep me entertained without having to deal with this nonsense of dvd format and tv broadcast methods.
 

Meniscus

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Another way they're going to get into our wallets, the end of analog broadcasting. They can keep that too for the price of hardware and subscriptions. I have no time to make these people fabulously wealthy for the product we've been getting. I have enough to keep me entertained without having to deal with this nonsense of dvd format and tv broadcast methods.

My cable company just raised my rates again. The cost for the standard package (not digital or high-def) has nearly doubled in less than 10 years. I'm sure they're over-pricing the standard package in order to get people to switch to digital cable, which is just a few months more a month, but I barely watch TV as it is, so I refuse to pay for a bunch of channels I don't care about.

I wish I could just give up TV altogether, but I do like to watch it occasionally.
 

transformer_99

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My cable company just raised my rates again. The cost for the standard package (not digital or high-def) has nearly doubled in less than 10 years. I'm sure they're over-pricing the standard package in order to get people to switch to digital cable, which is just a few months more a month, but I barely watch TV as it is, so I refuse to pay for a bunch of channels I don't care about.

I wish I could just give up TV altogether, but I do like to watch it occasionally.

I hear you, Comcast chose to make my cable experience miserable, they lost out, I terminated service. I then weighed satellite and what it would cost to get that. I chose an antenna and I intend to get the converter box with the Govt. coupon. I get the local networks, that's really all I need or even want any more. I was paying $ 60/month, not any more. If more people would drop service and not allow these people to rape us for a monthly payment, the world would be a better place. Look at broadband, I'm paying about as much as the dial up used to be. There are needs and then there's cable. Comcast is an unwelcome intruder in my home.
 

RamIt

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I actually walked into Best Buy with the intent of getting an HD DVD player, and walked out with a Sony blu ray. Man, I would be pissed if things had worked out differently.
 
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deleted15807

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I actually walked into Best Buy with the intent of getting an HD DVD player, and walked out with a Sony blu ray. Man, I would be pissed if things had worked out differently.

Trust me there are TONS of pissed off HD DVD buyers. Toshiba and partners had a fire sale on the players after Warner Brothers annonced they would switch to all Blue Ray. It appeared not to help at all but still those people are now stuck with soon no movies coming out in HD DVD and no company to rent old HD DVD releases.
 

D_Jurgen Klitgaard

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simcha

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I hear you, Comcast chose to make my cable experience miserable, they lost out, I terminated service. I then weighed satellite and what it would cost to get that. I chose an antenna and I intend to get the converter box with the Govt. coupon. I get the local networks, that's really all I need or even want any more. I was paying $ 60/month, not any more. If more people would drop service and not allow these people to rape us for a monthly payment, the world would be a better place. Look at broadband, I'm paying about as much as the dial up used to be. There are needs and then there's cable. Comcast is an unwelcome intruder in my home.

Amen! Actually, if the cable didn't just "work" when I plugged it into the wall, I wouldn't bother with cable myself. I'm getting a converter with a coupon. I don't care about all the latest technology. My TV is fine and it's analogue.

Oh and I don't do Comcast Cable Broadband at $50 a month. I do ATT DSL at $20 per month, and it's as fast as the stupid cable is.
 
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deleted15807

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Well I don't see that happening, but who knows.

What's amazing is Toshiba's stock has been rising since the rumors of them bailing hit the wire. Apparently HD DVD is operating at a significant loss right now and even having to write down tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars in losses is seen as a plus since investors know the black hole has been sealed. :smile:
 

transformer_99

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The sound alone is amazing on a blu-ray player. I don't have my surround sound hooked up to the PS3, but it doesn't even need it.

Hmmm, I'm thinking as far as audio goes, there should be little or no difference:

"http://hometheater.about.com/od/dvdbasics/a/bluhddvdinfo.htm"

General Specifications - Blu-ray:
Audio Specifications: Only Dolby Digital, DTS, and Uncompressed PCM are required on all players. However, the following formats are optional - Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD.

vs

General Specifications - HD-DVD
Audio Specifications: All HD-DVD players are required to incorporate the following - Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD, and Uncompressed PCM, as well as standard Dolby Digital and DTS.

Storage capacity is the biggest advantage I see, so more of virtually near identical video and audio can be put on a blue ray. Here's a link that supports that contention (sorry, sometimes I research things as I post):

[H] Enthusiast - Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD: The War of the Formats

See the Round 1 paragraph, looks like neither Blue Ray nor HD DVD deliver true HD:

"While Blu-ray’s 50 gigabytes of storage may sound impressive, it is simply not enough for “real” HD, which takes hundreds of gigabytes to store. It must be reduced in size while retaining as much quality as possible using compression. The real test of video quality is based on the HD video codec used to compress the video."

I wonder how much of a Blue Ray's disk space is wasted as a movie is generally the same size in true HD (the 100's of GB that is indicated), yet the codec used to compress without losing quality is the same standards for both ?
 

MeganFoxLover

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I'm sad for HD-DVD. But I have a feeling that Blu-Ray won't be around for long either, there is already development by a few companies by something even better. But we'll eventually get to the day where everything is just downloaded in HD. So... I don't know.

But I have so many damn HD-DVD's that it's incredible. I love the sound, picture, and everything. Just pop in 300 and watch any scene there is, even the opening, and then you'll be hooked.
 
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deleted15807

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I'm sad for HD-DVD. But I have a feeling that Blu-Ray won't be around for long either, there is already development by a few companies by something even better. But we'll eventually get to the day where everything is just downloaded in HD. So... I don't know.

But I have so many damn HD-DVD's that it's incredible. I love the sound, picture, and everything. Just pop in 300 and watch any scene there is, even the opening, and then you'll be hooked.

I really cannot see downloads taking the place of a physical DVD. Do you know how much time/bandwith would be consummed if we all started downloading 50GB movies or even 10GB movies? The download could take longer than the movie. And then after X number of days it would expire.
 

transformer_99

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Amen! Actually, if the cable didn't just "work" when I plugged it into the wall, I wouldn't bother with cable myself. I'm getting a converter with a coupon. I don't care about all the latest technology. My TV is fine and it's analogue.

Oh and I don't do Comcast Cable Broadband at $50 a month. I do ATT DSL at $20 per month, and it's as fast as the stupid cable is.

My issue with Comcast, they want you to bundle everything, telephone, internet & tv. The issue, while I might save some money bundling, my telephone and power have never been out for weeks on end, even turned off on me when I pay my bills as a loyal customer. I live where hurricanes are a fact of life, the last one that went thru here, telephone never went out, power was down for 5 days, cable was out for 2 weeks. Bundle your services with Comcast and you'll be without a phone, internetless and tv-less for weeks, maybe even months. Comcast installed my new next door neighbors cable, that very same day my cable went out. As I traced my cable to the terminal box, I found that I had been completely disconnected and that there were no more recepticles to hook the cable to. And then I saw the tag on a cable marked as my new next door neighbor's apartment #. Well, I was astonished that Comcast claimed to have sent someone out to attempt to fix my outage. Turns out they lied to me for 5 days. Just before 2007 Thanksgiving, they indicated it would take another 11 days to have my service restored. That's 16 days without. Had I bundled (and Comcast solicited me days before disconnecting me), would any of this have happened ? Would it still have happened and then I'd be out everything for 16 days ? Well, if that is their tactic (and it pissed me off that I had to see my new neighbor watching my cable connection when I came home every night to this very day), they can keep their services and raise prices to those who have to be their victims. Not me. Around 2007 Christmas, they showed up claiming they could reconnect me that same day. I told them not to bother, that I had disconnected them from the wall and I didn't want them anywhere near the wall to reconnect it. They went across the courtyard to try to solicit another neighbor, the guy rejected them and I started laughing at them and said to them, "see, there's someone else that doesn't want you in their home."

My ordeal if it didn't happen to me in reality, I'd swear was something you'd see in "The Cable Guy" or it's sequel.